An Escapade with Hawksley Workman’s Tour Bus or; When a yarn bomb fails, and you have to ask permission, is it still a yarn bomb?

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So last night, I went to go see Hawksley Workman with my lady B (who is rad). Intro by Lonely was seriously fucking radical. We had lots of fun screaming like little girls when the Man himself came on stage. Dude with the violin was great and I would totally go see him perform solo. Overall show was excellent and we loved every minute.

After the show, our plan was to yarn bomb the tour bus, so we brought some little magnetic knitted magnet things and we were going to casually walk past the bus and stick them to the door and take off and no one would be none the wiser that we had done it. It didn’t actually happen that way. Turns out that buses these days are made of fibreglass and shit, like most other vehicles, so this how it actually went down (with some embellishment):

Me: Fuck, they don’t stick to this shit.

B: Crap. What do we do?

Me: Those roadies are watching us, let’s go figure this out.

B: Okay, what if we’re just honest and tell them.

Me: That might just work.

(we walk over to the roadies)

Me: You’re roadies, right?

Roadie 1 (with dreads): Uh, yea?

Me: Okay, here’s the deal. We have these little knitted magnets. We were going to stick them to the bus and go.

Roadie 1: We thought you were trying to break into the bus

Roadie 2 (clean cut): And it’s not magnetic?

Me: No, it’s made of vinyl or something. Can we just give these magnets to you since they won’t stick to the bus?

B: We’re doing knitted graffitti and we wanted to tag the tour bus.

(both roadies laugh at this)

Roadie 2: Knitted graffiti?!? That’s rad!

Me: Yea, it was supposed to be sneaky, but since this shit isn’t working, we gotta ask your permission.

Roadie 2: There must be someplace on this bus to stick them

Me: I think it’s crap. There’s no metal anywhere.

Roadie2: What about the bolts [on the equipment trailer]

Me and B; Right on!

So here’s pictures from that. Cool! Thanks roadies, you guys are the shit, my bruthas! I gotta say that the Hawk has some solid roadies to flow with that. I think we probably looked like some crazy groupies at first, but we just wanted to yarnbomb the bus.

So then, we mosied on over to the parkade and stuck this one:

After that, we got up to some other shenanigans with a tree at the Kelowna Law Courts:

…and a light standard (that WAS magnetic!!!)

Nothing was open after this, and we were HUNGRY, so we ended up at Boston Pizza and watched the dog show on TSN, which was both weird and wonderful. And that’s how we ended the night.

Thanks for your comment! I appreciate your concern and compassion for living things and would like to let you know that in addition to my role as an artist, I am also a gardener and botany enthusiast (plant geek) and an animal lover.

Most of my yarn bombs don’t last very long and are usually removed very quickly (sometimes within hours and I’m sure that the one at the Kelowna law courts was one of those). They get taken away by municipal workers, souvenir seekers and I suspect to some extent (and my preference) by the homeless.

As a self-professed “yarn snob” I work primarily with natural fibres like soy, cotton and alpaca. If (on rare occasion) I do choose a synthetic yarn, I’ll use it for things I know will be removed soon.

Find that Knitification.

About the Great Canadian Pop Cultural Intarsia Series

Suggestions are starting to come in for my Great Can Pop Cult Int Series. My goal is to make a whole shwack of knitted panels featuring Canadian pop cultural icons and to use these panels as an exhibition. So far, I've heard:
Margaret Atwood
Leonard Cohen
the CBC Logo
Douglas Coupland
Romeo Dallaire
Terry Fox
Chief Dan George
Paul Gross
Rick Hansen
the Hanson Brothers
Gordon Lightfoot
Sook-Yin Lee
Peter Mansbridge
Kate McGarrigle (log driver's waltz)
Bob and Doug McKenzie
Christopher Plummer
David Suzuki
Pierre Trudeau
Neil Young
But I'd love to hear more ideas. I want to know who *YOU* think should be included and WHY! Send me your suggestions so I can immortalize your favourite Canadian in knitting.

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